Big Skeezy Challenge – Week Twenty-One

Good morning, everyone! Last week marked the second consecutive week that Big Skeezy was on the downturn (weight-wise) and he was maintaining his under-300 pound benchmark. This week could be another story, though, as an impromptu road trip and the Memorial Day Weekend showed up to knock him off track. How did he fare? Let’s break it down:

So here we are, Blackjack Week here in the BSC. If only I had known that Week 21 would truly turn into Blackjack Week when it started! As it happens most weeks, the days started normally with biking, protein shakes in lieu of oatmeal, water, exercise, etc. Late in Week 20 I had been invited to Vegas by my friend (who we’ll call “Jenn” so as to protect her anonymity). She was going out to visit her brother and his new lady friend. I waffled at first but then decided to go with her. We were to leave Thursday night and come back Saturday afternoon due to her needing to work Saturday night.

I awoke Thursday morning and hit the gym in epic strides. Loads of weights, extra cardio, and a metric crap ton of crunches. I knew damn well that my decision to make this trip was probably going to be my undoing as far as the BSC went, but I wasn’t going down without a fight. I was well-behaved the rest of the day and even took a much longer route home on my bicycle so as to get that extra little bit of exercise. Jenn picked me up around 8:30 Thursday night and were off on the high speed desert burn to Vegas.

We arrived in Sin City just after midnight. We checked in, met up with her brother and his lady friend, and hit the town:

As you know, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas but I wanted to give you a small taste of what went down. Instead of spinning my usual yarn, I’m going to use a list of keywords. Infer from them what you will:

Jenn had to work Saturday night so we drove back that afternoon. I was going to head downtown to a shindig that night but never made it. That turned out to be the only night I would sleep in my own bed before Monday.

I awoke Sunday and went to the gym, having treated myself poorly while in Vegas. I knew I would, of course, but I could still fight. Also, I figured I had Sunday and Monday to be good and get back on track…and that’s when “Kendrick” called.

I was at the office after my gym session when he rang my phone. He had a trip out to Malibu planned for the day as well as a barbecue to attend that night. I decided to go along because, well, it was a holiday weekend and why not, right? We cruised out to Malibu and did some work at his mom’s house and then made our way towards the barbecue in Echo Park. En route we had decided to go bowling and ended up in the middle of a street fair we didn’t know would be there. We rode a terrifying ferris wheel in gale force winds and then ate some Korean BBQ. That’s right – BBQ on the way to the BBQ. It was really freakin’ good, too.

We then bowled a game and went off to the barbecue. It was a house out in Echo Park that was jam packed with hipsters. Probably a hundred people at this joint. We held court in the two best chairs atop the roof and met some great people, four of whom we then took back downtown to Kendrick’s where we imbibed and stayed up until damn near 4:00 AM.

Monday morning soon grew brighter and we made our way to the Los Angeles Athletic Club where we got a solid yet mild workout in. The day was about to turn for the worse health-wise, as we were headed to Hermosa Beach for the annual fiesta. It’s a big street fair with bands and food and such. It was also the 30th birthday of my friend “Tom”. We made our way from bar to bar, having margaritas and beers as well as eating every kind of fattening terrible foodstuff known to man. Tacos, onion rings, fries, spinach dip, wings, and Irish nachos. Oh man, I knew today was going to be bad.

I finally made it back to my bed around midnight but, for whatever reason, just couldn’t sleep. I watched Netflix, I read, I did everything I could to get some shuteye but it seemed that every time I approached that threshold where you slip into the dream world something in my brain kicked in and kept it racing. I finally nodded off around 4:00AM, just in time to be out the door at 5:30 for my ride to the gym.

Now for the fun part. I knew that this was going to be a horrible weekend for the BSC. My concern at this point was that I would step onto the scale and find out that I was back in the 300’s, at which point I would be devastated. I expected it, though, and had dug my own grave. I reluctantly stepped onto the scale and found that…

…I’d gained two pounds. That brings me back up to 298 and brings the total weight loss down to 73 from 75.

All things considered, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. For all of the Vegas and California adventures I had over Memorial Day weekend I did stay pretty mobile. I also got some good gym work in before and after Vegas. I just ate it all into the crapper.

So here we are, the second losing week of the BSC. That makes me 19-2, which isn’t too bad. This week will be one in which I am glued to the gym. I’m getting back on track, as there is nothing looming on the horizon that should get in my way.